The virus has been linked to thousands of cases of a birth defect known as microcephaly in babies of women who become infected with Zika while pregnant.
Advertisement
Thirty-six countries – or 66% – have a low, very low or no likelihood, owing to the absence of Aedes mosquitoes or suitable climatic conditions for their establishment.
Overall levels of risk across the region were determined using this likelihood of the virus to spread within countries, but also on their existing services and capacity to prevent, or contain, an outbreak if transmission was to occur.
The current Zika virus outbreak started in Brazil in the spring of 2015 and has since spread across Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States.
The Zika funding is part of a bigger bill the Senate will consider.
“Congress needs to recognize the urgent threat posed by the Zika virus”, the Sarasota Republican said.
Despite being about $800 million short of that request, this Senate compromise is still way more than the 2 million Republican House leaders say they’re willing to provide.
It was unclear how long it might take the Senate and House to work out their differences once they pass their respective bills.
White House press secretary John Earnest described the House plan as “woefully insufficient”, and top officials at the National Institutes of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control have said limits on funding make it hard to pursue important vaccine research.
“Fighting Zika is a public health priority”, Wicker said. John Cornyn of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, would provide $1.1 billion that would be offset by cuts to Obamacare’s Prevention and Public Health Fund – an option that Democrats are sure to reject. “This is a crisis that we need to deal with, but we ought to at least attempt to offset that funding”. Rep. Nita Lowey of NY, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a Monday statement that failing to fully fund the request would lead to delays in searching for vaccines and efforts to control the mosquito population.
“It is a bad idea for Republicans to move forward with a proposal that would gut our efforts to follow through in the fight against Ebola, and it’s a bad idea for Republicans to further delay the emergency funding necessary to protect the American people from the Zika virus”, Earnest said. Every child deserves the chance at a full and healthy life, and every mother deserves to see her child thrive, said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky. The requested money would help fund the development of vaccines, strategies to control mosquito populations and more.
One provision would provide $248 million to combat Zika overseas through mosquito control, maternal and child health programs, and public information campaigns. It divided Senate Republicans, with 29 opposing the measure and 23 supporting it. Sen.
“This is a bipartisan first step toward protecting families from this virus”, Murray said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
Advertisement
Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Miami has also backed the administration’s Zika package, but the state’s other GOP House members are silent. A more likely deadline is early to mid-July, when lawmakers leave Washington for a seven-week recess dictated by earlier-than-usual national political conventions.
